Facsimile
by Lily-L-Bell
Summary: John Watson isn't a stupid man. He sees; he understands. So what if their relationship isn't the usual. It works. Because it's fine, it's all fine. Because he's not wanting for anything. They have a system. And while all they have is a facsimile, does it mean that the bond they develop is any less than the normal relationship? Ace!Lock, First Person.


There is nothing like an interesting case to get the wheels in your incredible brain churning is there Sherlock? And for me there is nothing like being a part of the chase; the adrenaline burst that gives me tunnel vision. It's probably what kept me as career military when so many others had preferred to just finish their time and return home with the benefits that they had earned. (Frankly I think some of those boys deserve even more than they received, but I do try to keep my politics out of polite conversation.)

But this particular case; a head decapitated, boiled, set out on a table and cracked open like a soft boiled egg was especially gruesome and you found it simply fascinating that someone had used a table spoon to dig out the brain and, as you correctly deduced, eat it like aforementioned soft boiled egg. At the crime scene, this time, I felt of little use other than to just stand there and feel sympathy for the poor sod… Hector Jameson, that's right, he had a name and perhaps it's not the most respectful thing to label him 'sod'. The head belonged once to Hector Jameson, 35, steel worker and apparently 3 AM snack to Hannibal Lector. I couldn't really be of use in determining cause of death as the rest of Hector was missing from this place. But by a quick sweep of the house it was obvious that Hector wasn't killed or even decapitated here… just his head was brought in using a tescos shopping bag found in the kitchen bins.

Needless to say this horror film scene lead us on a chase halfway through London following after a serial murderer/cannibal. (Not every day you apprehend a cannibal so it's one for the blog, certainly.) But we caught the bastard, taking in an afternoon snack of a dead pigeon's raw heart in Regents Park. He may have gotten away from me tackling him if he'd dropped the pigeon but who can reason what goes in the mind of someone insane enough to crack open a bloke's head and eat his brain with egg noodles and soy sauce?

But digressing to my point, (yes, amazingly I can make a point despite what you say!) is that probably the best thing about the case, for me, above seeing the 'bad guys' (yes, I quoted it to avoid your harping because apparently to you bad and good is subjective and not universal but I am sorry, someone who decapitates people to eat their brains is pretty much textbook evil in my world.) get theirs and seeing justice done for a good bloke, Hector remember, who'd never hurt anyone is the process of coming down from the adrenaline rush of a frantic chase; the shivering of excitement in the cab ride back to Bakers Street because neither of us have worked it out of our systems and most of all the feeling of our heavy oak door pressed into my back as soon as we walk through the threshold… because you've grabbed me by my jumper and slammed me there so you can crush your lips, those cupid bow, pale, dusty-rose lips against mine; your prequel to your words of endearment:

"You were brilliant John."

Can 'smack' be the onomatopoeia for sloppy, quick and darting kisses?

"He would have never escaped, once you sink your teeth into the chase you can't be shaken. Like a bull dog, proper, upright, so bloody English. Hmmm."

Oh and there's that tongue, that darting, swift, deadly sharp tongue that rips people apart. That tongue vivisects people and slices them open cleaner and straighter than I can as a surgeon. People come to me to have their insides exposed, to be observed, and cured. People do not care to have their mental-insides so diagnosed. And yet that mouth that spits venom and frozen daggers is so soft and warm and open for me. You actually allow me in; invite me inside that warm cavern. I am privileged, and I know this, and it makes it all the better. It would have been fine, just fine, if you just needed to blow off some steam from the case and you chose me because I was closest. But it makes my chest feel tight to know that you didn't make that decision just because I was the closest person but because you want me to. (Because you have told me so.) You want it to be me to kiss you, and run my hands up and down your flanks and to drag and pull you around by a bunched handful of shirt until your coat has mysteriously found the floor along with my jacket and jumper and you're splayed out so debauched on the sofa that it drives me mad.

I think you want me driven mad. Maybe I'm more interesting that way. Right now your eyes are focused on me with more intensity than they were on the brain-eating serial killer. And they're just so bright and alive and your skin is just so smooth, the hair of your chest thin, barely visible, and fine to the point where from a distance one might assume you didn't have any at all. And that chest and collarbone are delectable. I really can't resist; I mark them, nipping at flesh and dusty-rose colored peaks and there are long and diligent fingers threading through my hair and this is lovely. This is so intimate. This is what it feels like to be lovers, not a quick and indecent shag.

Maybe it doesn't sound any different in description. It's so hard to find the words that will separate the two for other people. It's not really something people can put words on it, is it? Kind of stuck right there in the world of feeling… I'm sure if I asked you that you'd spew about thirty six-syllable vocabulary words that would be used to build that distinction, but you're a little indisposed and I wouldn't interrupt this for the world… well, okay maybe for a gushing wound but for no other reason is this scene going to be stalled.

I work my mouth down your Adam's apple, run the route carved into the center of your form by your sternum, worship your concaved abdomen (I feel another burning sense of privilege that I am the only man to have heard the sounds you make when my tongue dips into your navel; something between a moan and a giggle, I suppose everyone has a spot where they seem a little ticklish.) If that bloody woman was worried about your cheekbones she should have seen your hip-bones; a perfect dish of pelvis that should be carved into marble and preserved forever. I haven't said it out loud yet, but I have this subtle fantasy of licking wine off these angles. I'm not even a wine drinker! But it would have to be wine, red, actually, because I'd want to see the color it leaves behind on the translucent pearl of your skin and you would thread your fingers through my hair because you trust me.

Yes. This is why we can have these moments; because you can trust me. The first time we had a meal together (I ate, you glowered out the window in search of a serial killer in a cab) you said that relationships weren't your area. Apparently Sherlock Holmes, mad-genius, is the kind of person that has some pretty prevalent trust issues. And really why shouldn't you? I've met your idiot brother and I've met Mummy Holmes. (A perfectly lovely woman mind you, but quite cunning and rather known for being able to manipulate situations into her favor.) After all, on our first case Mycroft kidnapped me and offered me money to spy on you and while I turned him down it doesn't change the fact that I may not have been the first person you ever fancied an acquaintance that may have been approached by Mycroft. So, going into this, how can you trust me so willingly? You've grown up surrounded by manipulators and users. I have been given an obligation, a duty, not to fuck this up. Guarded, tight, distant you have given me special clearance into your amazing world and into the folds of your so sparingly dispersed affections and all you really ask of me is to walk beside you, remind you that you're amazing when everyone else calls you a freak.

It does wonders for your disposition to not be constantly put down in public, to feel like what you have to say is valued and you are as well… I'm no psychologist, but no one seems to be able to look into Sherlock Holmes and see the humanity there, not that you make it easy on them, of course, but you've had a life time of being used. Your brother uses you or at least manipulates situations around you to get everyone to move in his desired way and you rebel against this, you want to know that you are choosing your own path, not the one your brother is laying for you, and that is normal and alright. Even with the Work, the police summon you to assist them. They use you as an unpaid resource for their work, and all the while officers put you down to your face; call you a freak. I will never tell you how I can see where a life like yours would produce a person with a complex relationship to relationships… and to their self image. Or simply, that someone who's led a life such as yours may be a sad soul. Sherlock, you don't want my pity and frankly I have no desire to pity you; I pity everyone around you who don't seem to be able to see.

I hope you see, Sherlock, that you are amazing. You are wonderful and brilliant and there is no other human being on this planet that is like you. Yes, you are cold and you are distant. But there are moments, like right now, where you open the small, hidden gate in that wall and let me in and you're starved in the cell you've made for yourself. It's a mind palace but you are the only person there, a prisoner of this ugly world but you're soul is raw, and warm, and grasping for the warmth of another to validate it and make its existence clear to itself. Are you rude? Yes but there are times where you speak to me with such tender frankness. Honesty that leaves you naked and vulnerable, where my reply or reaction is going to speak volumes to you and you're trusting me to say and do what you need me to. Do you struggle with empathy? Yes, I think not to the degree that you advertise, but also it's very common in people who are similar to you. (In this flat we seem to avoid the word Aspergers like a plague. Sherlock, no one is diagnosed as a sociopath anymore. Now that's just a word for the clinically dangerous. You're not a sociopath and despite what you say I'm not that stupid. I know that word being connected to serial killers and cannibals is your magic yard stick, to keep people at arm's length from you so you don't have to experiment with any kind of relationship, I won't fall for it.)

You have given my life colour and meaning again and you give me your trust, putting your heart in my hands and Sherlock it's so small, so fragile and childlike and all you ask is that I not crush it, that I handle it with care and make it better when it hurts because sometimes it must. I'm your army doctor, and I am broken. I have terrible nightmares and I'm haunted by visions. I've seen so much trouble and in my own twisted way hunger for more, to fix the disrupted order in a chaotic world. Perhaps I have a holy-knight complex.

And, Sherlock Holmes, you trust me and want me to be a better man than all the spiteful people who spit venom and cruelty on you. You make me better for needing me to be. And as I lean back and let my eyes meet yours again it sticks in my chest because the eyes that peer into me aren't the ones that dissect crime scenes and yarders and former girlfriends who wonder if I'm still single; they're so childlike. Questioning. When will they stop questioning me Sherlock? You have to know, don't you, that I would never hurt you? (Aside from verbally throttling you when you're being simply insufferable and yes, there are and will be times where I simply will be so angry with you that I will want to wrap my hands around your neck and choke you until you see sense!) I would never pressure you or manipulate you into giving me something of yourself that you just can't. And I know you can't. And I understand that. Because sometimes there's only so much left of us and we give what we can.

Leaning back here with your knees cocked to the sides, looking well snogged and pliant and simply wanted and loved I feel incredibly aroused by you. You're gorgeous and unguarded and so vulnerable that I want to give you pleasure, to reinforce that it is alright. But I know, and I understand, and so I give you what you can accept. What you have told me you can, what you can manage. We can talk about our needs and limitations, you and I, and I am completely comfortable letting our relationship progress on your terms. You're the one who's new to them, it's only fair to give you your chance to decide preparedness.

"John." Your voice is soft, not harsh, are you worried because I've suddenly stopped to just drink you in? Don't worry. I'm fine, it's all fine. I tell you so and you let your head fall back on the union flag cushion; relaxed.

You're just so beautiful, I want to tell you that as I lean forward again to press kisses to your temple, but you'll probably just chide me for being uncreative. It's fine. My hands are preoccupied exploring every inch of you that is exposed, other than the obviously forbidden zones.

And yet you roll a bit and take inventory of me. "John." You chide. "It's bad for your health to suppress your needs so long, as a doctor you should know this." It's not as if my raging erection is being well hidden by my jeans and it's also not as if I'm not known to you, now, for ignoring it as long as I can so I can stay with you like this.

"You're right, it's not but-" I begin, because this is where it ends. This is where soft, pliant, warm and needing time ends and you'll wave me off to see to my own carnal needs and you'll find something to preoccupy yourself with.

"But, you were simply amazing today," You close your eyes, seeming to be in a state of consideration, "And I'm tired from going three cases running. I think it's finally time for me to sleep a little tonight, I'll retire to the bedroom with you while you finish where we started… but no closing your eyes when you do it though, I may not want to participate, but I want to be the one you want. Maybe you'll think it selfish of me, but I am simply a selfish, possessive, and jealous individual by my nature."

No, Sherlock, you're not. People are entitled to want the one they love to want them, even if they can't within the same parameters of want. You know it's difficult for me to separate my two, the one that wants to be with you forever and listen to your deductions and fight about the milk and the other, animalistic and feral one that wants to touch and be touched by you, to make you mindless and gasping and damn it I want my name spilling breathless from your lips. But that's not our system; our system works. (When we do as you suggest. It may not be every night, or even once a week, but I'm a bloody adult Sherlock, even in a relationship with a sexual human being I wouldn't be lucky enough to get laid every night or even once a month. You don't seem to realize how like an actual sexual relationship our system is…) I don't mind at all, in fact, I love when we do this; our little facsimile. Sherlock, don't you know that we're still making love even if all I do is hold your hand? It's not a wank to me then. It's not some meaningless action because something is still going on, something is exchanged, the same kind of emotional something that is when sexual couples do their… coupling. You don't have to participate. I completely understand that it's one of those parts of you that you can't share, can't break off of yourself. It's fine. It's all fine. Because while what we have isn't the usual, it works, and if it does who cares how we reach that goal of bonding, of both of us left exposed and vulnerable to the other, curling up together. Yes, I climax, but you seem to enjoy the afterglow as much as I do. Why is that? Because it means you've not been barred from anything about me, about having me and keeping me that my previous relationships have had. And it's yours. It's all for you. You can have it.

It's almost like I can feel the fluttering of your heart in my hand, this is one of those points. Your childlike eyes are asking me;

"Are you disappointed in me?" Over this? No.

"Do you regret that you're not with someone that can fulfill all your needs?" You are perfect the way you are, and clever enough to concoct a replacement, my needs are filled. I regret nothing involving you and my needs other than the fact that you can't seem to remember the milk.

"Will you someday get tired of me and find someone less troublesome?" Other people have their own troubles. I don't know if I could manage their mundane troubles, I know yours. I can manage yours in my life.

"Will you be true and committed to me if I allow myself to love you? Can we be monogamous?"

… Sherlock…

"Let's head up to bed and get comfortable then. Come on, up. You know, we can skip it this time around. I'd like to see you sleep more. But come on, I still would like to kiss goodnight."

A/N: I would like to add an author's note here, because a very good point was brought to my attention that what is going on here may be a little confusing and it's particularly never in my interests to harm or insult the asexual community. At a glance the depiction of Sherlock as Asexual and the degree to which may seem odd to some people.

This fic was born of a sudden, spontaneous creative-episode and is essentially a re-write of an early roleplay done with a friend where she portrays Sherlock as somewhat emotionally unprepared for relationships, romantic or otherwise, and he happens to also be asexual. This meaning that, early on, this emotional sense of unease is the primary inhibitor of sexual experimentation, with his orientation being lesser so.


End file.
